


Like a slap to the face

by N8schatten



Series: A thousand lives, but our souls are the same. [2]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, First touch soul mark Au, IDIOTS BOTH OF THEM, Soulmate AU, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-02
Updated: 2020-06-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:07:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,667
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24509638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/N8schatten/pseuds/N8schatten
Summary: Having a big black handprint of a soul mark on your cheek isn’t the thing somebody would wish for. Ask John he would know. Not only did this mean that the first contact he would make with his soulmate was a slap to the face, but…First Touch Soulmate AU
Relationships: Amy Pond/Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, The Doctor/River Song
Series: A thousand lives, but our souls are the same. [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1768171
Comments: 2
Kudos: 73





	Like a slap to the face

**Author's Note:**

> So this is based on the "First Touch Soulmate AU", basically there is a black spot where your soulmate first touched you. I just added a little detail: Once you touch them for the first time the mark will change colour at first and then disappear completely after a while.
> 
> This is just some fun, about those idiots.
> 
> As always, English is my second language and I want to get better, so please point mistake of all kind out!

Having a big black handprint of a soul mark on your cheek isn’t the thing somebody would wish for. Ask John he would know. Not only did this mean that the first contact he would make with his soulmate was a slap to the face, but…

Look, if people see a handprint on your face the first thing they do is point. John hadn’t had problems with that. He was twenty-six and already had three doctorates in two different fields. One of them included a professoriate. His artworks where rather popular and his papers about physics made him rather known as well. So people pointing at him weren’t so bad.

People giggling about your soul mark, was a different point. The first thing most people did when they meet him was staring and after a moment they would start to grin. It was only a question of time until they laughed. He got used to it, but it wasn’t easy. Especially, because John just got a job as a teacher at the Luna University. It was his old University and the oldest one in Gallifrey. So studying there was incredible enough, teaching was a big honour, only a few people got offered.

Dating with a handprint on your cheek…well John hadn’t actively dated anyone for a long time. Not only would they stare at his soul mark for most of the time, but really that was fine. No, but there were people, whose first reaction would be to slap him…EVEN DOE THEIR SOUL MARK WAS IN A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT PLACE.

So yes…dating wasn’t a thing he did.

Instead, John taught his classes and experimented and wrote his paper. He would go home and lock himself up in his studio and home, together with his cat. Who was called Tardis and paint until he would fall asleep. It was a steady rhythm he had. Teaching, working, painting, sleeping, repeat. Again and again.

Eating wasn’t necessarily included in this schedule, but that was where Amy and Rory came in. They lived in the house next to his and would always look out for him. Both of them were his childhood friends and Amy was the only girl that never tried to slap him, because of his soul mark. No Amy slapped him for other reasons. They were each other’s soulmates. They were perfect for each other.

So yeah, that was his life. Boring and simple, but he was happy, he didn’t need a soulmate he had his cat after all.

The thing was, his peaceful schedule had been interrupted in the last months. River Song had returned to Luna.

River Song was the ban of his existence. She was like him. She had come to Luna way to young to be officially a student. She was considered a protégé and a genius. They were alike. Both hot headed and stubborn. Like Amy used to point out back when they where at uni. The thing about River Song was that she was an archaeologist.

Don’t get him wrong. Studying history was a good thing. His third doctorate was in art history, but there was a different between history and archaeology. Historians analysed and recorded the past.

Archaeologists broke into sacred places and tombs and destroyed them, by taking things away. So no he had no respect for River Song.

The other thing about her was the demeanour. She was smug and to proud and always the first to swing a punch, if something didn’t go her way. Besides she was caring a gun around, and that was just wrong. Amy sometimes would tell him, that his problem with River Song was the fact, that Rivers soulmark was her hand. Like her whole palm was black. Amy had pointed that out to both of them a few years back and it was the only time they had agreed on something. They had looked at one other, back to Amy and then had shouted in unison: “NO”

The point was. River Song was back. Not only with a new archaeological found, but also as a Professor. So he saw her every day at work. His luck didn’t end there, River had brought back home a piece of artwork from a period that had only one available expert…him.

Which meant they had to work _together_. Amy had nearly died, because of her own laughter and of course, Rory stood behind her and grinned at the Doctor. So much for being his best friends. The even event so far, as to invite River to a dinner. Amy remembered him several times, that River too was her friend and to shut up.

The evening had ended eventually and he got to go home, so he wouldn’t talk about it.

They ended up every day after their lessons ended, huddled up in a little room staring at paintings. Mr. Lux who had founded the expeditions and because of that, owned the paintings watching over them. Not only was there a tension as thick as possible, but also Lux with his stupid ideas and comments. John wouldn’t say it out loud, but he liked River more than that man. Sometimes River would share a look with him, and he just knew, that she thought the same.

Luckily for John they were almost done, the only thing they had to do, was to present their findings. This was where the problems started. John knew exactly how to organise the paintings. He knew the way they had to be organised to make sense. River refused to do it, because she wanted them to be presented in the order they had been found.

The last ten minutes they had argued about it. Lux and several other people who had a part in the dig where staring at them, but they didn’t care. “You can’t do it that way!” He shouted and gesture wildly at the paintings. “The meaning they have will be completely different and wrong. Unless you want to see them a…well a private…” He stopped blushing as Rivers suddenly started to grin. “Now we definitely have to keep it that way!” He threw his arms in the air and said something. He really didn’t remember what he was saying, but it had to be bad. The people in the room stared at him, mouths open and shock in their eyes. He noticed it only out of the corner of his eyes. What he did, notice was how Rivers grin disappeared and her eyes narrowed.

She slapped him. She slapped him so hard his head twisted to the side and for several seconds he couldn’t breath. There was a high-pitched noise in his ears, and he couldn’t understand a word of what River was saying. When the noise died out River spat “BASTARD!” at him and turned back to the table. She started to rearrange things, muttering to herself.

John didn’t really notice who the other people stared at him. He just rubbed his cheek. River Songs was mad, he had known it. He mumbled to himself, completely missing how River stopped both muttering and moving. He only noticed when she turned back to him. Her eyes were huge and there was shock and disbelief and maybe something else in them. “River?”

She just stared at him, no not at him, at his cheek. “River?” That was the moment when he noticed her hand. Her palm used to be black, completely black, now it was blue. Blue like the roof of his house. Blue like the collar of his cat. Tardis blue. “No!” John took a step back, staring at Rivers hand und pressing his own closer to his cheek. “No, no, no, no, _NO_ ” He shook his head. “No it can’t be, we touched before. No, we…we touched…” He stared at River wrecking his brain to find a situation when they had touched before.

 _There_ just when they meet, he had run into her and… no he had run into her, but he had gloves on, because it was cold.

In his second semester they had blushed in the hallway… No they hadn’t. She had worn a sleeveless top, but he had worn his jacked.

The house party Amy and Rory had given in third semester they had… _almost_ kissed.

He just stared and River stared back trying so hard to prove their marks wrong.

“Graduation?” River asked. Everybody had to shake hands that day. He shook his head. “We refused both.”

“That party Ramone threw in fourth…” River tried again, her voice getting higher. “Nope” He said. “You got him by the lapels the moment he opened the party. None of you left the bedroom, that night.”

“My goodbye party Amy threw, when I left the first time.” She pointed a blue coloured finger at him and he stared at it. “I haven’t been there. Tasha Lem had me at her place painting a portrait of her.”

River stopped breathing for a moment he did to. When they both realised that there had been no encounter between them where they had touched until now.

John got a glimpse of his face in the window behind her. “Fuck” He breathed. His cheek was green. Green like Rivers eyes.

A thought crossed his mind, and he turned back to River, who still looked like she wasn’t breathing. “We can’t let Amy know!”

River paled even more. “She’ll never let us hear the end of it.” River whispered and just then a scream ripped through the silence.

A very high-pitched, very delighted scream. He and River jumped in unison and wiped around to see Amy and Rory standing in the door. Amy with a huge grin on her face, squealing and jumping up and down on the spot. Clapping like a little child. Rory behind her looked almost pitiful, but he had a hand pressed to his mouth and his shoulders were shaking.

John glanced at River and their gazes meet.

_We are screwed!_


End file.
